He had to know it would never be easy. He’s from the area. He knows just how hard Pittsburgh can be on quarterbacks. It doesn’t matter whether it is for the Steelers, Pitt or any of the local high schools.
It didn’t help that he suffered an injury in the first game that he was starting and wiped out a full year. An injury that forced Pitt to play a never more than raw Kevan Smith and then true freshman Pat Bostick. It made the weakness of the position even more glaring from the prior years with Tyler Palko under center.
So, with Stull coming back and LeSean McCoy back there, things were expected of Stull in 2008. Maybe not great things, but consistency, a steadier hand and leadership.
Heck, Coach Wannstedt was even puffing Stull before the season started.
“Coming out of camp a year ago, I really believed Bill Stull was going to be the best kept secret in the Big East,” Wannstedt said Monday.
Of course, once things actually started playing out, Coach Wannstedt defended Stull by pointing out how little experience he had.
“…That’s a little bit of inexperience but as I’ve said many times before, he’s only making his fifth start. He’ll improve every game.”
And it seemed he did make some improvements. Getting steadier and having the confidence to throw over the middle more and improving his footwork. That was until getting concussed in the Rutgers game. He never quite seemed the same. Pitt was winning games, but Stull was hardly looking sharp.
Whether it was lingering affects, being gun shy, or just that Stull was inconsistent and was only accented by the games that followed. By the time of the Sun Bowl, it seemed that Stull had regressed and then collapsed.
That wasn’t in the script for Stull. He expected a better performance from himself. He was set up to do so.
In the weeks leading up to the Sun Bowl, Stull’s grandfather passed. The Sun Bowl was to have been Stull’s dedication to him.
“R.I.P. G-PA” written on the towel hanging from his pants. You know that Stull wanted to have one of his best games. And if it had, or even if he did enough that Pitt won we know how it would have played in the media. It would have been the postive story/puff piece that gets people feeling misty-eyed.
Instead it was his worst. An abysmal flop of a game. No stories about his relationship with his grandfather. No stories of him coming of age as Pitt’s leader. It became a story that never happened.
Instead, questions. Ridicule and doubts. Even the gambling sites are putting all the questions of Pitt on Stull.
What do Florida’s Tim Tebow, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford and Pittsburgh’s Bill Stull all have in common? Those three quarterbacks all will be entering their third season as their teams’ starting quarterback in 2009.
But that’s definitely where the comparisons end.
…
Thus that brings us back to Stull.
Pittsburgh probably has the most talent in the Big East, with another seven starters returning on a very good defense. But the fate of this team rests on the senior quarterback. If the Stull who was part of four come-from-behind victories in the fourth quarter last year shows up, the Panthers have a chance to be a surprise team in the country next year – they are at 70/1 odds to win the BCS national championship at Bodog.
That’s what Bill Stull is facing coming into training camp in less than a month. He has a new OC with no loyalty to him, but the Head Coach has still said he’s still the starter.
Fair or not, sides have been taken in the debate. Every snap will be scrutinized by the fans. Evidence will be deduced from each practice as to his fitness and competence to be the starting QB.
I hope he’s ready. The pressure is on Stull. All the other QBs in the camp have nothing to lose by contrast.
Best case: the competition lights a fire in Stull and he busts out.
Worst case: there’s a viable backup should Stull falter early (but hopefully not to the point of any unforgivable first-game losses!)
“best kept secret in the Big East”??? The room starts spinning when I read comments like that. There are times where I find Wanny quite inspirational and others when I think he’s, as the great Adam Carolla would say, stupid or lying. How could truly think this of Stull. This is a kid that we’ve all been stretching to make comments like, “well, he’s good at managing a game.” WOW! That’s like when Jim Tracy claimed the Pirates were getting better at bunting, meanwhile they were in the can. It’s a cop out compliment left for spin doctors. We’ve all seen Stull loft a non-rushed 20 yard duck that lands NOWHERE near a receiver and thought to ourselves, “he just doesn’t have the arm strength.” You can’t teach a kid to rope a 30 yard pass in a few short months. Bless him for trying, but we all know how frustrating it was to see the 0-3 score in that small west texas town of El Paso.
HTP
I’m always so conflicted on Stull. On one hand, he’s not a great QB – never has been, likely never will be. But on the other had, the coaches have to share a big chunk of the blame for putting him in situations where he was asked to make throws he just wasn’t capable of. The best example I can think of is in the ND game, where Stull threw to Baldwin on the exact same play three times in a row. (Baldwin did catch that third pass, thank God.)
I am hopeful and terrified about Stull’s performance this season. Maybe Cig will put him in situations where he can succeed, but maybe he’ll completely collapse in the face of defenses that don’t fear Pitt’s running game so much.
Either way, it should make for a heart-attack season.
I do think that Cig will be a better college OC than Cav; I also expect Bostick to challenge for starting QB next month — you may remember that his delivery in the sprng was improved with just a little over a month with Cig.
This tendency of Stull to do well in practice has been stated to me directly from people who have watched him do this for the past two years – even so far as to light up between game practices and then go into his shell at game time.
Which leads us to the biggest problem, IMO, going into summer camp this year. Assuming our new OC actually does have the authority to make his own personnel decisions (I believe the “Stull is the one to beat” utterances were stated more for Stull’s morale sake than a proclamation of fact) then Cignetti has to really weigh past performances and put them into a understandable context.
That means looking at what Stull did in his games as a fourth year JR vs what Pat Bostick did as a true FR during both their starting stints – and then projecting what differences and changes have occurred in the both the positive and negative senses with the two. Normally when discussing a college player’s progression you think about how he stayed the same or got better over a period of time, but unfortunately with Stull one has to factor in the second half of the season and his implosion as the season played out – including his being a complete non-factor in post season play.
There is no doubt in my mind that Pat Bostick is a different player than he was when we watched him as a starter in 2007. Physically he’s really changed and worked very hard to put himself in the position to compete for the starters job. But the bottom line with me is that there is a huge difference between being thrust out onto the field as an 18!! (freakin’ 18) year old kid with half a camp (and getting third team reps in those two weeks) under his belt and now being in the system for his third year, with some of the biggest wins in PITT’s history on his resume’.
Couple all those factors with production in camp, including (and maybe the most important in the long run) the confidence of the other offensive players they will be asked to lead, and hopefully we’ll get someone out their who Cignetti feels confident can execute an aggressive game plan.
It’s asking a lot of a new OC IMO. The one thing I think we can all agree on is that the debate will be between Stull and Bostick – as Sunseri has a mountain of precedent, and not on his side, to climb to get over those two upperclassman to start.
“…the lean, 6-foot-4 kids who can wing it downfield.”
Expect such an improvement from Cav to Cignetti.
Let’s hope Sunseri gets a real chance.
At this point, I think Bostick’s potential upside is much higher than Stull’s. I would prefer to see them start Bostick the next two years, but I suspect they will go with Stull first (senior, last year, etc.). The only thing I realistically hope for is that they have Stull on a short leash. If he isn’t getting it done, the coach’s need to quickly transition to the “Bostick era.”
DW is truly a genius….
But he did play, in my opinion, very well (but not great) against USF, Louisville, and he was even doing well in the Rutgers game. Remember, people were panicking when he got hurt in that game. And I believe that Louisville game was post-head injury, so we can’t even totally blame his regression on that.
I don’t get it with this guy. And I don’t trust Bostick either. Bostick led us to a win over WVU the same way Stull did: Shady & defense. Let’s not kid ourselves here.
I just hope the new offensive coordinator makes something click with one of these two guys, because unless Sunseri is secretly lighting it up in practice unbeknownst to us, I don’t know who else we have.
1) Stull has had some good games but haven’t given us a great deal of hope coming into this year.
2) But we will give him (Stull) the benefit of the doubt if he comes out playing well, similar to what he did mid-season last year.
3) Yet, we would be very open to Bostick or Sunseri beating him out since they both appear to having a better upside.
4) and finally, we think Cig will have more imagination and better utilize the talent than Cav.
10% Agent fee (off the gross): $100,000 per annum
Fed, State & Local take: $550,000
Union fees and Misc league fees: about $50,000
He’ll walk with about $300,000 per year take home pay – while very nice especially for a 20 year old kid – is not enough to state he’s “rich” or set for life.
The key for him now is to buy a reasonably priced condo in San Antonio and a kid-luxury car at the best interest rates possible and live off the Spurs per diem payments for his first three years, and sock that $$$ away – but few kids do that.
Put it this way – if he gets hurt and walks away with only his guaranteed three year money of $3M gross he’ll be looking for work soon, and will have to work for the rest of his life like everyone else.
My prediction, Stull and Bostick share the snaps and Sunserri wraps up some games.
In the end, it will be Bostick leading an slightly above average Pitt team to a 7-5 record.
In what could be a battle for a starting position, Pitt upperclassman Gary McGhee got the best of freshman Dante Taylor even though his team lost. McGhee finished with 15 points and 17 rebounds, while Taylor finished with eight points and six rebounds, despite doing a pretty good job keeping McGhee out of the post.
Jamie H – 10% is a standard agent fee, some cases will be less, some more (in Hollywood talent agents can ask as much as 20% and get it depending on their track records) but 10%’s an Industry Standard.
However, numbers aside – my point was that – literally – a million dollars isn’t what it used to be at all. His take home pay will be much less than that and if not properly invested, and if something derails his career – which we see in sports all the time – that money won’t be a big factor in his future life.
Invested wisely, then he can maintain a decent standard of living, depending on where he chooses to live, for the rest of his life… but only if he gets good counsel now and adheres to it. Something young professional players rarely do.
To put it another way, a degree and hard work will make that amount of take home pay and more over a person’s lifetime – a HS degree most probably won’t.
$2.7 Mil for 3-years = 900,000/year
Less a 4% agent’s fee = $864,000
Less $50 K in union/league fees = $814,000
Less 35% Fed Tax = 529,100
I believe NBA players have to pay state tax for each state they play a game in as a visiting team so for sake of argument he may have to pay 5% state tax on half his net income or about another $40,000 in tax.
That leaves about 490,000 net.
Out of that he will need to live, get a car, pay his aunt who is his bookkeeper a salary, etc.
So, bottom line he will probably have, if he is prudent with the monies around $300-350,000 to save and invest.
The bottom line remains that this won’t make him 100% “set for life” although it will be an excellent start. It will tkae prudence and one more big contract to get him to that point, IMO.
Maybe I should’ve said “He’s Rich”*
*for the time being…
I was just saying that he got a pretty nice contract that should allow him to live pretty comfortably while he proves himself in the NBA.
And I know he’s in a higher tax bracket, but I doubt they’re taking $550k from him out of a million per year, especially, as someone mentioned, in Texas.
bottom line, the kid is 20 years old. he cannot live extravagently with this contract, but if he invests it wisely he will be set for life.
The $300,000 (a conservative estimate by reed) that he will be able to save and invest annually over the next 3 years will result in $3.33 million if compounded at 10% (this assumes holding periods of 15, 14, and 13 years) at age 35. A 10% per annum return is more likely from risky assets given the tumult of the past 18 months (perhaps the recent 12 week period makes it more difficult, but it is possible nonetheless). Based on his life expectancy of around 70, he could comfortably withdraw 4% of his principal annually, and, depending on interest rates, not run out of money. Historical average for 10-year treasuries is 6%, therfore I am being conservative with the withdrawal amount. 4% would result in $132,000 in pre-tax income per year.
a lot of assumptions, but if he has a decent planner, then this contract should put him in excellent financial shape for the rest of his life.
I will be much more focused on watching him play than watching his portfolio.
BTW, Young had 11 & 6 on Thurs nite
“Costly move for Pitt pair? Tailback LeSean McCoy and basketball power forward DeJuan Blair, both from the University of Pittsburgh, could become the twin poster children for staying in school. Both players bypassed the final two seasons of their college eligibility to go into their respective drafts, feeling they would be first-round selections. Blair declared himself a “sure thing” in the first round, citing Internet reports. But the two lasted until the second round, with the Eagles snatching McCoy with the 53rd overall pick and San Antonio stopping Blair’s freefall with the 37th choice. The two might have cost themselves a lot of money, particularly Blair, since second-round NBA contracts are not guaranteed. A year ago, a Pittsburgh newspaper published a feature on McCoy and Blair, heralding them as the rising young stars for the Panthers. In both football and basketball, Pitt normally doesn’t recruit the kinds of players who might leave school early, and the experiences of McCoy and Blair might further validate that stance.”
No inferences …. just thought I’d mention it.